Monday, March 31, 2008

I don’t usually do this kind of stuff (no offense, Miss Allie), but I’m having a crap day at work and will welcome any kind of distraction at this point, including frequent pee breaks because I’m drinking a lot of water.

Here are the rules:1) Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog2) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.3) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.4) Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

And away we go!

1) I am really bad about pictures. As in, remembering to take them, and then when I do take them, they suck bad. Getting a digital camera did not help – I end up erasing probably 80% of the stuff I take because it sucks so bad, and then I wonder why I never have pics of anything.

2) I sang in choir from when I was little all the way through my sophomore year of college. In high school and college I competed at state level, and performed in state-ranked and nationally recognized choirs. I loved it. I guess I was pretty good, but I never sing anymore, except to the radio.

3) I can never, ever turn down hot, fresh pizza.

4) Last night, I dreamt about an old high school friend puking macaroni and cheese on me. Repeatedly. I have no idea what that means, but I don’t think it’s good.

5) I believe in God, but I detest organized religion. I’ve felt this way for several years. I can’t share this with my staunch Baptist parents, not only because I think it might break them, but also because they would probably stage some kind of horrible Jesus Intervention, and I am totally not in the mood. My MIL thinks I hate going to Mass because the priest that married J and I was a dick, but it’s really because I think Catholicism is a fairly large crock of shit. (If you’re Catholic or Baptist, I don’t intend to offend you – it’s just my opinion. If I get flamed for that, so be it.)

6) I have no patience for people that have no rhythm, and even though I know they can’t help it, I think they can’t hear or keep the beat because they are stupid. Again, sorry if that applies to you.

7) As I get older, I keep forgetting that I have birthdays. Like, I know I get older every year, but I forget how old I am (even at 25!), and forget that there is an actual anniversary of my birth. On the same day. Every year. I know that makes no sense, but that’s the best way I can describe it.

Dude, my stuff was all kind of on the downer side – sorry; I’m just in a crappy mood today.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Warning: Gross

This morning, I was taking my time getting ready for work. When J left just shy of 7, I still had about 20 minutes left in getting ready.I like to wander around when I brush my teeth (it’s the last thing I do before I get dressed and walk out the door), and when I walked into the unlit kitchen, I saw that The Turd (cat #3) had puked on the rug in front of the stove. I have become so desensitized to cleaning up all manner of cat bodily fluids (excellent practice for children), so I just shooed her outside in case round 2 was coming, went back to the bathroom to rinse and spit, and came back to the kitchen to clean up the mess before I left.I turn on the light, check out the mess on the rug, and think “Huh, that is some weird-looking cat puke. Maybe it’s a hairball, poor baby” (I know; let’s add “cat vomit connoisseur” to my resume). I move in for closer inspection, and suddenly find myself making eye contact with the disembodied face/partial head of a dead rabbit. And I start freaking. The. Fuck. Out.

I call J, screaming and crying, and he thinks someone has died, and I finally manage to calm down enough for him to understand me, and then he starts laughing (probably because he’s already 10 miles down the road and thus too far away for me to smack him).

J: “Just sweep it up. You’ve had to deal with dead stuff they’ve brought you before.” (Because they always seem to do this in the very tiny window of time between J leaving and me leaving. Thanks, cats.)Me (crying): “I CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS. I CANNOT LOOK AT A DEAD RABBIT FACE THIS MORNING.”J: “Well, I can’t go all the way back home to take care of it.”Me (calming down): “But…what if I left it for you?”J: “What?”Me: “What if I just, like, cover it up, and you can take care of it when you get home?”J: “You are seriously going to just leave it in the house all day?”Me (suddenly pragmatic): “Well, it’s dead – it’s not going to get up and walk around.”

So yes, children – there is a piece of a dead animal in my kitchen, covered up with a bunch of newspaper that I threw in its general direction, because I am a wiener and a chicken and a baby.I can do bodily fluids: I have held my fair share of friends’ heads over toilets, sinks, and trash cans. (That’s love, by the way.) I can clean up poop of all smells, colors, and consistencies without batting an eyelash – give me some rubber gloves, and I’m good to go.

But I do not. Do. Dead. Animals. Especially at 7 in the morning, pre-coffee.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

I was raised Baptist, J was raised Catholic. I’ve been non-practicing for over 10 years, but J’s family is still involved in their church, so we had a full Mass wedding, with communion and the sitting and standing and kneeling a hundred times, the whole shebang.

As I’m sure is the case with most couples, I remember very little of the actual wedding ceremony (other than our greenery-wrapped candelabras catching on fire on two separate occasions, requiring the best man and soloist to alternately blow out/douse with a water bottle the candles to keep from burning the place down). Anyway, at one point we kneeled for a while in front of the priest so he could bless us or anoint us or tell us we were going to hell for having premarital sex or something. After the ceremony, we were standing around waiting around to take pictures with the wedding party, and one of my bridesmaids asked if I’d checked out J’s shoes. Me, blissful and glowing with love and relieved that the best of the night – band, beer, and barbecue – was yet to come, looked adoringly at my new husband and said “No, and I don’t care”. My bridesmaid, annoyingly, insisted that I look at his shoes. J is acting suspicious, and the groomsmen are guiltily inching away. J sheepishly lifts up his feet and shows me the soles of his shoes: printed in bright white paint pen, on the bottoms is:

Which, while we were kneeling peacefully, during a beautiful, meaningful, much-anticipated holy ceremony in front of our friends and family in a house of God, read as

SAVE ME

My ecstasy over having just married such a wonderful, kind, sensitive, loving man quickly turned to anger over being stuck with this asshole for the rest of my life (it had been a stressful few weeks for me, so you can understand my initial overreaction). For the next few minutes, I was far from the demure, blushing bride; I’m sure St. John’s Catholic Church had not often, if ever, heard the kind of profanity spewing from my mouth. I couldn’t believe, after all the work that had gone into planning (and paying for!) this day, not to mention enduring the pressure of loving and wanting to marry a man my mother heartily disapprove of, that J would make light of something we’d looked forward to and dreamed and talked about for so long.

Thus, in the wedding pictures that I came across last night, the photos that document the “happiest day of our lives”, the shots in which our photographer directed us to “face each other and look lovingly into each others’ eyes” did not turn out as romantically as intended.I am instead glowering and visibly fuming, uttering under my breath,“ I cannot fucking believe you did this. You fucking asshole. I could fucking kick you in the balls right now”. J is penitent and sheepish, and finding it hard to maintain eye contact with me.

Somehow, sometime before we made our way over to the reception, words of apology were said and I calmed down – in the pics of us making our first entrance as Mr. and Mrs., we are holding hands and laughing, smiling. I had a couple of drinks, I got happier, I danced, I changed out of my big foofy dress and into my reception outfit and danced some more. And we lived happily ever after.

I can tell that story now without my blood pressure spiking much, but it’s taken nearly 3 ½ years to get to that point. Looking at those pictures last night made me run the gamut of emotions again – we’re just as happily married as we would have been if he’d kept the paint pen away from his shoes – and I was able to laugh a little bit this time.

You know, I’m glad to be stuck with this asshole for the rest of my life.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Seven fucking meetings over 3 days this week, y’all.Five of which were/will be incredibly boring, but I am only all too happy for the excuse to get away from my desk and escape the still-palpable tension and weirdness in my cube.My day started with our oven beeping obnoxiously and randomly at 4 this morning – there is some kind of sensor broken in it, where it thinks it’s overheating, even though it had been off since before 8 o’clock last night. I would get up to turn it off, and just as I would get snuggled back in bed, it would start beeping again. I did this four times before J got went outside and flipped the breaker – I hate that an oven isn’t something you can easily unplug.Because my sleep was so rudely disrupted, I did NOT want to get out of bed this morning. I was running late, and J was all pouty since I’d yelled at him re: the oven last night/this morning (it’s been doing that beeping sensor thing for at least 4 months, and he’s had the part to replace it for several weeks, but he just hasn’t felt like doing it), and I had a headache and a boring 2-hour meeting to look forward to this morning, plus a slightly sick feeling in my stomach at the thought of the tension here at work – it has not been a good morning.Thank God the week is half over, and I have Southern Culture at The Continental Club to look forward to this Friday. Hurry up, weekend!!!!!

Monday, March 24, 2008

DUDE. UGH.Things are tense and weird at work right now. I got involved in an uncomfortable discussion before I left last week, and it made me dread coming back in today. It was the kind of talk where I kept thinking, “I cannot believe we are having this conversation. This is not happening.” It was horrid.When quittin’ time finally rolled around, a trotted away just as fast as my little legs could carry me, and while I enjoyed my Easter weekend, I could still feel the cloud of Yuck and Bad Karma hovering over me.

I’ve got that itchy, jumping-out-of-my-skin feeling that is typically my cue for needing to do something drastic with my hair, but I’m trying to be kind to it and grow it out, so that’s off the table. J is having similar stressful stuff going on at work, but since he has no hair to play with, his proposed solution is to get a new tattoo (ha). We ended up having a long, slightly buzzed discussion about our future, jobs and kids and everything, and it was really fucking depressing and scary. It was decided that we should run away, and live a peaceful existence on a commune, free from the confines of a job and taxes and E!; we could name our children Earth and Sky and Meadow, and J would grow a beard, just for fun, and we could have goats. Just because.

When I was in middle school, I thought being an adult would be a lot of partying and living a glamorous life in a townhouse (heh), staying up all night, and buying lottery tickets and beer, or something.

When I was in high school, I thought it would be like Friends, but with more of this amazing Tantric Sex that Cosmo kept talking about.

When I was in college, I thought it would be about having a fabulous career and lots of money to spend.

I’ve discovered that it’s more about finding someone to hold on to, someone to get slightly drunk with at 8 o’clock on a Thursday night, then eat leftover pizza off paper plates, and then have pleasant vanilla married sex in your bed swathed in plain cotton sheets, and fall asleep together with the TV still on the local news.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

My bestie Jamie and I went out to a movie and dinner the other night, and it was just what my cold little shriveling soul needed – it is so, so, so good to spend time with a kindred spirit.

I’ve been in a funk the past couple of weeks - after getting back my blood test results, and discovering that I’m still not pregnant and still not ovulating on my own, J and I have decided to take a break from the babymaking. 4 months of no period at all, followed by 4 months of Clomid treatments, and the ensuing hormone rushes and über-planned, less than romantic, mechanical sex, made for a very stressed out and weepy me. I am extremely impatient, and even though I have read the books and the websites and the message boards and talked to people, and know that I’m not the only woman in the world who has lazy ovaries, it’s still a heavy burden to carry, and really one I have to bear alone. And it was too much for me. So I’m taking a step back, to take care of myself, to love my husband more, to have awesome sex that is Just Awesome Sex, and to not have to plan our social calendar around my ovulation.

Plus, work and its stresses are about to pick up exponentially, and we have several trips planned over the next couple of months; I’d prefer not to have to sneak in some Sex Week action in my Nanny’s squeaky spare bed, with only a thin wall separating us from my parents, or to have to get it on in the woods or in our car (I have had too much car sex already in my lifetime – I am NOT doing it anymore!).

It’s been a relief not worrying about it – I’ve been heartily enjoying my drinking and caffeine privileges, and sex with no pressure is so much more fun; I also feel less guilty buying new spring and summer clothes, knowing that I won’t have a growing belly to take into consideration. Still, it was hard to hear this week that some college friends are expecting their first child this summer. It’s not that I’m not thrilled for them – they are awesome and ready and will produce the cutest little future fine arts majors you ever saw – but still, there was the pang. (Damn that pang).

I’m taking tomorrow off for a much-needed shopping trip and mental health day with Jamie – the most strenuous decision I will make over the next 72 hours will be The brown pair or the red pair?

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

I’ve been on a music download kick lately – it’s bad, probably 30+ bucks’ worth in the past week (that’s bad for me, because I’m cheap – also, I’d been trying to pay off that credit card…eh, nevermind.)

Earlier this week it was “Which songs would I sound awesome singing along to in the car?”; that list was extensive, and also made me realize that I must’ve been a 70’s soft rock backup singer in a past life.

Now I’ve moved on to the Guilty Pleasures phase – my last 2 were Erasure’s “Take A Chance On Me”, and The Mamas and The Papas “Dream A Little Dream Of Me” (I just noticed that they have a similar theme – unrequited love much?).

I am totally obsessed with Sitemeter – I check it at least 3 or 4 times a day, because I can’t wait for the weekly email report; I am more of an instant gratification kind of girl.

I see that you are mostly Texas folks (Howdy!), and I think I know who you are, but there are some other guys, too; please make me feel less like that crazy lady that puts Bandaids in her hair and talks to herself, and say hey – especially if you’ve just been lurking and haven’t commented before (because I can see you!!!!).

Here, I’ll even give you something to comment about (if you want to): What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to do, but have never had the nerve?

I’ll start: I’ve always wanted to strip for J, and he totally digs the idea, but if it came down to it, I’d get all giggly and self-conscious, and then I’d feel stupid instead of sexy.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Y’all, I am waaaaay tired today. My best friend and her husband are in town visiting from Tennessee, and they came over last night for a drink. J just had a beer, but the rest of us polished off 3 bottles of Riesling…so today I’m not hungover, just totally draggin’ ass.

Feel like my posts have been especially lackluster lately – my brain has only been producing thoughts of a dull grayish brown color lately. I always think of good post subjects when I’m falling asleep, or in the middle of the night. I start mentally writing it up, and think of lots of clever things to say, and when I wake up and try to remember what I came up with, I’m like, “Uh, something about…Fruity Pebbles? And Elmer’s Glue? WTF?” I need to just keep a notebook by my bed so I can scribble stuff down as I think of it. Used to that for dreams, because my brain would cobble together some crazy shit, but I don’t have entertaining dreams anymore (though this morning, J did tell me that he dreamt he and his bro were the dudes in Dukes of Hazard, and Boss Hog was chasing them, but some chick walking a dog flashed them, and that distracted them, and then they got caught. Yeah, I have no idea.)

And Now For Something Completely Different

So J and I live kind of out in the sticks, on 2 acres in a suburb of Houston. It’s nice and quiet, and I enjoy being able to walk out to the car in my underwear unnoticed (at least after dark). The acre lot behind us has been an empty grassfield since before we even started building about 5 years ago – it’s been nice to pretend that it’s just more of our backyard. BUT. Recently, there has been more activity back there by the owner of the lot – I think they’re preparing to start a pad for a house. And I am really sad about it. Our house is set on the back 1/3 of the lot, making for a nice, big front yard, but that means that when the owners behind us start building, their house will be muuuuch closer than what we’ve been used to. More importantly, unless we put up a 10-ft. privacy fence, said neighbors will be able to see very well into our house. That means I will have to start wearing pants again when I am home, and that sucks.

It’s not that I wander around naked or near it all the time – it’s just that sometimes putting on actual clothes to cover my body just takes so much effort. Maybe I’ll at least be able to keep my topless privileges through the unbearable south Texas summer…or maybe the contractors will get a peep show. We shall see.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Despite the sunshine and smell of approaching spring in the air, I’m in a pitiful melancholy mood today. Let’s wallow in it together, shall we?

Songs Guaranteed To Make Me Cry (Or At Least Mope)

Danny’s Song, by either Loggins & Messina or Ann MurrayBlack by Pearl JamPuff The Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul, and MarySong for Athene composed by John TavenerMore Than Words by ExtremeTears In Heaven by ClaptonA Letter To Elise by The CureAnd So It Goes by Billy JoelLast Kiss by Pearl Jam, or by that first dudeEverything You Want by Vertical HorizonFade Into You by Mazzy StarAt The Stars by Better Than EzraJust about any fucking country song, because country music sucks like thatEagles Need A Push by Cigar Store IndiansAgainst All Odds by Phil Collins

On Friday afternoon I was out running errands, and I ended up at my old community college, talking to some people I used to work with and wandering around campus. The weather was beautiful, and I was in a good mood – I felt 19 again, in a good way.

That night, I was back on campus to see a play with my mom, and I saw my old college boyfriend there (he was a theater major [YES, I dated a theater geek, and NO, he was not gay], and we were in a few musicals together). I wasn’t prepared for that (one is supposed to look put together when seeing an ex, no?) – I’d just changed my shirt from what I’d been wearing since 6:30 that morning, and I was in an ungracious mood from listening to my mother all evening. And then it irritated me that my initial reaction to the situation was that I needed to “be prepared” to see him – aside from an extra 30 pounds, I have nothing to be ashamed of in my life – but still. I don’t even know if he recognized me (see: extra 30 pounds, ugh) – regardless, I didn’t have to speak to him, and I was relieved. But it put me in a bad mood – I felt 19 again, but in a bad way.

It’s weird to look at someone you once thought you knew so well, someone you imagined maybe being with for the rest of your life, and realizing that they are a total stranger, that your life is soooo much better for it, and that your 19 year-old self was DUMB.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

I am going crazy.All afternoon, I swear I have been followed by the smell of warm urine. So. Gross.No, I haven’t peed on myself. And I’ve been in 3 different buildings today, and I keep smelling it, so it’s not like I’m mistaking the smell of old microwaved burritos for a bodily fluid.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

J always calls me during his lunch break. Actual conversation we just had:

J: “We should do it tonight.”

Me: “That’s funny, I was thinking about that in the shower this morning.”

J: “Well, why didn’t you come wake me up, and we could have done it then?”

Me: “I wasn’t thinking about it like, ‘Heyyyy, we should have some super sexy sex this week.’ It was more in terms of scheduling logistics, like ‘Hmm, maybe I’ll cook spaghetti for dinner tonight. And maybe we could have some sex.’ (pause) Wow, that is really pathetic. I think work has poisoned me.”

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

To the person who happened upon my humble, boring little blog by Googling “preteen”, I am so very sorry that you didn’t find what you were looking for; alas, I have no inapPrOpRiate uNclothed images for you. Can I offer you a nice heaping serving of Wholesome instead?

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

I love my husband.

I’m cutting and pasting this post from my personal blog, dated late October, because I’m too lazy to retype the whole thing over again just to make a one-sentence point. Here:

So a few weeks ago I signed up for a subscription to Bitch magazine, and ordered some back issues as well – I’d heard mention of it on afewdifferentsites I read on a regular basis, and was in the mood for some new reading material/food for thought. Feminism, pop culture, bitchiness; what’s not to love?

The back issues finally arrived this weekend, and J brought in the package to me last night, and I got all excited and ripped it open, anxious to get started (even though it was already 11). John picks one up; “’Bitch’? What is this?” and I explain, and he gets a very worried look on his face. “But…you’re not a feminist. You, like, shave your legs [on occasion] and wear a bra and you got married. To a man.” And so of course that got me all fired up, because 1) How is it that J and I have been together for 6 years and married for 3, and him not know that I’m a feminist???, 2) Let’s not stay muddled in 1970’s stereotypes, hon, and 3) I’ve been walking around with a chip on my shoulder for the last few days anyway; it was just a matter of time before I threw a fit of righteous indignance.

After I got over my initial shock at this revelation, I asked J a question: “Do you think, all things being equal (besides genitalia), that I should get paid just as much as a man doing the same job with the same level of competence?” He answers yes, to which I reply, “Then you’re a feminist too.”

**Update: I sent the above TN post to J on Monday, when I wrote this. He came home that night, after working late, and admitted to being a feminist in that sense of the word, and then he voluntarily gave me the most awesome foot rub while I lay in bed eating cookies and reading more Bitch. Fuckin’ A.

Okay, all this to say: Last night, my darling husband actually used the phrase “hypersexualization of preteen girls” in a conversation. It was awesome. You’ve come a long way, baby.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Thank the Lord above, my fertile period (or as J calls it, “Smash Week” [for some reason, he likes to come up with random euphemisms for sex; I’ve agreed to let him call it Smash Week, so long as he never, ever, EVER refers to the sex act as “boning”. Ugh.]) is over for this cycle. After our last go-round on Thursday night, probably the most unromantic and mechanical sex we’ve ever had, as I lay in bed with a pillow under my butt (Gravity! To help the swimmers! Go Sperm, Go!), I looked over at J and tenderly said, “Baby, I love you so much. Let’s not have sex for, like, a week.” And his warm, sincere reply was, “I love you too. And that sounds awesome.”

And now we wait! I have 2 meetings on Wednesday afternoon, and will still need to leave work early enough to make it to the doctor’s office for a blood test before they close. I’ll go in a few days later for a pregnancy test, to see if our efforts have paid off, or if I will need to start another round of Everything again, including even higher doses of Clomid this time. I hate to say it, but I have gotten a little more used to the hormone surges and their unpleasant side effects – this time, my face managed to emerge fairly unscathed by zits, though my back is not as fortunate. (I know; cute, right? Picture a 13 year-old boy in drag with huge knockers, and you’ve got me pegged.) I know the indignities I suffer now will pale in comparison to what I will go through if/when I get pregnant, but since I’m not there (yet?), I can still bitch.

Over dinner on Saturday night, I laid out for J how, if I got pregnant this time around, it would be perfect timing: a Christmas (-ish) baby, so my family would have time off to fawn; my third trimester during holiday parties and gatherings, so I would have a great excuse to either a) eat like a pig, or b) bow out gracefully; my third trimester would occur during the cooler months of the year, rather than having to haul around an extra 30+ pounds during the miserable Southeast Texas summer; maternity leave during the yucky, gray part of the year that I only want to hole up in my house; getting back to work just before things hit a good, quick, eventful stride at work, when it will still be cool enough outside that I can cover up my still baby-chubby self without feeling like a nun. Perfect! Because life always turns out that way. Right.

So. Keeping my fingers crossed, and Wishing and Hoping and Thinking and Praying, Planning and Dreaming…